It's back: LimeWire Pirate Edition debuts

Less than a month after being shut down, LimeWire has been resurrected by an anonymous team. Despite the fact its creators had to close their doors due to copyright law infringements, the Gnutella-based file-sharing client is now back under a new name: LimeWire Pirate Edition (LPE). It is currently only available for Windows.

"On October 26 the remaining LimeWire developers were forced to shut down the company's servers and modify remote settings in the filesharing client to try to harm the Gnutella network," an anonymous source told TorrentFreak. "They were then laid off. Shortly after, a horde of piratical monkeys climbed aboard the abandoned ship, mended its sails, polished its cannons, and released it free to the community."

LPE, which is based on the latest LimeWire 5.6 beta (released earlier this year, before LimeWire's demise), is now circulating on various download sites. Furthermore, it has been improved: the Ask toolbar has been unbundled, dependencies on LimeWire LLC's servers have been removed, remote settings have been disabled, and all the features of LimeWire Pro have been switched on for free. All adware, spyware, and advertising has been removed.

After a four-year suit brought on by the RIAA on behalf of eight major music publishers, LimeWire was officially shutdown late last month. Federal Judge Kimba Wood found the company, LimeWire LLC, and its founder, Mark Gordon, guilty of assisting users in committing copyright infringement on a "massive scale." Damages expected to total at least $1 billion will be assessed when the case resumes in January 2011.